lukebl

An animated gif. 26 x 15 second images over a period of about 12 minutes.

Canon 6d. 75-300mm zoom @ 230mm. ISO400. Tracked on a Skywatcher AZ GOTO mount. I wish I'd captured RAW files instead of JPEGs. Next time...

3 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Lovely image Luke, curiously I took one a couple of hours later and the tail was more vertical, I wonder if its rotating ? or maybe my camera wasn't level 😁

Dave

To be fair, I'm pretty certain my camera wasn't particularly level either! I was scrabbling around in a wheat field, in the dark trying to avoid being seen by the farmer.

Rather than getting up early, I decided to stay up late so that I could see it in a dark sky, and it was spectacular. This was at about 1:00 BST (i.e., 'real' midnight). Disappointed that there weren't any Noctilucent couds, though.

Canon 6d, ISO 400, Canon 75-300mm lens @230mm. 15 secs

On 05/07/2020 at 23:20, niallk said:

Wow, imagine observing Jupiter occulting Saturn! 

Just hang on a bit. That'll happen on February 10th 7541.

A slightly smoother rendition...

Whilst viewing Comet NEOWISE this morning, I took a couple of snaps of the moon and Jupiter with my Canon 6d and 75-300mm zoom at 300mm.

Just had a play with them and produced this composite.  It was highly stretched to bring out Jupiter's moons, and resulted in the gradients but I quite like the surreal effect. Not to everyone's taste, I'm sure.

The moon was exposed at 1/800 sec, and the other one was 1/2 second, ISO 320

I'm not good this early or late in the day, but it was well worth getting up for the comet. It was beautful in binoculars with its graceful tail. Here's a couple of quick snaps captured about 3:15 BST.

This one has the Tacolneston radio transmitter on the right. Canon 6d, Canon EF 75-300mm @ 130mm f/6.3, ISO 320, 4 secs

Canon 6d, Canon EF 75-300mm @ 250mm f/6.3, ISO 800, 2.5 secs

That was a really good talk. Thanks.

Gary mentioned how old Registax is, but I still use Registax 5 as I find that it works better for me than either Registax 6 or Autostakkert. Maybe it's just me.

 I captured this image with my newly-restored Coronado PST.

c. 800 frames, QHY-5ii cam, basic PST. It's nice to see that despite the surface being very quiet, there's plenty of prom activity, and what appears to be a new sunspot appearing lower right.

Great captures! What a gorgeous sight.

And in colour, with a bit of artistic licence!

My Coronado PST has been languishing in its box for a couple of years because I was getting frustrated by its fuzzy performance. I got it out last week and realised that the problem was probably the little ITF filter in the eyepiece holder. So I sent off for a replacement from Beloptik in Germany, and it duly arrived a few days later.

I just tested it and, joy of joys, it's now working brilliantly and there's a gorgeous prom on the limb. Here's a quick capture. About 500 frames, just the basic PST, QHY5-II mono cam, 2x Barlow. I'm going to have to brush up on my imaging and processing skills, but it's nice to be back in the solar game. I've done a Stage 1 mod and still have all the bits, but I prefer the basic PST as a great grab and go.

Here's the offending tiny filter. Ouch, 157 Euros for a replacement, but without it the scope is just junk.

A slightly sharper rendition. Just 120 frames, most of them diffuse and noisy due to passing clouds.

Yes, once the moon and Venus were in the same field of view, the motion was very noticeable. That's probably why the moon is even less sharp than Venus.

I was up at 5 am, preparing for the occultation under clear skies. Needless to say, the clouds had rolled in by the time of the occultation.

There were one or two gaps and I did manage to retrieve a few frames shortly before immersion, and briefly during emergence. Hardly prizewinning stuff but better than nowt, I guess! The dark looming limb of the moon on the right-hand side shows the huge difference in albedo.

Omegon RC8, Tal 2x Barlow, ZWO ASI 290MM Mini Mono camera.

21 hours ago, lukebl said:

I've been watching the weather forecast closely for this event for the past few days. It's been flitting between sunny, showery and just plain cloudy.

Currently the BBC forecast looks promising, and Clear Outside predicts ... clear outside. Fingers crossed.

The forecast has now changed to cloudy!

It is amazing to live in a climate where it's still impossible to predict the weather more than two days ahead.

I've been watching the weather forecast closely for this event for the past few days. It's been flitting between sunny, showery and just plain cloudy.

Currently the BBC forecast looks promising, and Clear Outside predicts ... clear outside. Fingers crossed.

Great image. Some sort of Swift?

I tried it yesterday (1st June) and could make Venus out with my Omegon RC8, 2x Barlow and ZWO ASI 290MM, obviously relying on the GOTO to get there. I briefly looked by eye, but the background sky was painfully white with the sun's glare, and couldn't see it visually.

It was shimmering like crazy in the heat, and I just couldn't focus on it for an image. I'm amazed how anyone can get a sharp image, however awesome their optics, during the heat of the day. How do they do it?

There was a transit of the moon by the ISS here this evening, and I attempted a double capture; one wider field with the DSLR and one detailed one with my RC8 with a 2x barlow.

Unfortunately the path was a bit further south than predicted by Calsky so the detailed view was off the frame of my RC8. But I did manage to capture this wider view with the DSLR. Canon 700d + Skymax 90 (1250mm) video record.

I started that other thread due to my difficulties collimating my 200mm RC.

My problem is that I'm too hasty! Once I'd settled down, read and re-read and re-watched various instructions and videos on the matter, collimation wasn't that difficult or time-consuming using a combination of a Howie Glatter and Cheshire, and I think I've got it nearly perfect now. The scope is so robust that it seems to hold collimation very well and if it needs collimating again, I'm confident that it wouldn't take me more than 10 minutes.

So the message is, once you've learnt the slightly quirky nuances of RC collimation, it's actually quite easy and you have a very sharp scope.

Only a few more days till Inferior Conjunction. Venus's cresecent is getting bigger and thinner and starting to be lost in the shimmering haze.

Here are some recent captures. Omegon RC8, 3x Televue Barlow, ZWO ASI 290MM Mini Mono camera.

Personally, I don't believe you need anything fancy for astro-imaging, which is why last year I bought a very basic Lenovo 100e Winbook for just £129.99 new. 4GB RAM. They don't seem quite as cheap as that now, though.

I use it to run ASCOM, EQMOD, PHD2, Carte du Ciel, Sharpcap, Firecapture, Artemis and other programs with absolutely no trouble. It has USB3, so can download planetary images at high speed. It's only drawback is the small hard drive, so I have to remember to regularly transfer big files to a separate drive. It boots up very quickly too.

15 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

What time did you capture? Earlier is better when its higher up but its harder to find in the blue sky (and have to take sensible precautions regarding the sun)

I have been capturing later (18:30 BST onwards), when the sun has passed behind my roof and the scope is in shade. When it's bathed in sunlight, I've been finding that the turbulence is even worse.

I would have though that the longer tube of your Newt would make it even worse, but clearly not!

That's a phenomenal capture. I managed to capture Mercury's disc and gibbous phase for the first time ever last night, which was very satisfying, but the seeing was terrible.

Just wondering how you manage to do it! I am having to image it over my roof, so I guess it must the thermals from the tiles after a hot day which make my seeing so bad.

5 hours ago, david_taurus83 said:

BTW, what is your pixel scale at 1.6m focal length?

It's 0.58"/pixel. I know. Way oversampled!